


Crossroads

by loveguk



Category: 5 Seconds of Summer (Band), One Direction (Band)
Genre: Ashton - Freeform, Bullying, Calum - Freeform, Lashton - Freeform, Liam - Freeform, Love, Luke - Freeform, M/M, Michael - Freeform, Name Calling, On Hold, School, Stuff, harry - Freeform, just changed the names, louis - Freeform, niall - Freeform, not originally my book, one direction - Freeform, or discontinued idk, theyre all teenagers, yeah - Freeform, zayn, zayn is a bully oops
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-10-18
Updated: 2014-10-18
Packaged: 2018-02-21 17:10:43
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 868
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2475935
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/loveguk/pseuds/loveguk
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>As children, Lucas Hemmings and Ashton Irwin were both social outcasts. They were also each other's only friend. So when Ashton disappeared without warning, Lucas thought he'd lost the one person who would ever understand him. Now in high school, Lucas had been transformed. Known as Luke, he is popular, happy, and dating-everything "Lucas" couldn't be. But he still shake the memory of his long-lost friend.</p><p>When Ashton suddenly reappears, they both are confronted with memories of their shared past and the drastically different paths their lives have taken.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Crossroads

 

 

 

> **cross·roads**

> ˈkrôsˌrōdz/
> 
> _noun_
> 
> a point at which a crucial decision must be made that will have far-reaching consequences

 

 

A dripping faucet.

Crumbs and a pink stain on the counter.

Half of a skin-black banana that smells as old as it looks.

If I look at these things and nothing else, concentrate on them and stay still, and don’t make any noise, this will be over soon and I can go home without Ashton’s dad ever knowing I’m here.

He is yelling.

About how Ashton is always late coming home from school. About the lizard cage needing to be cleaned and how he knew he should have never let Ashton have a pet because this is what happens– children forget to stop caring and expect their parents to take care of everything and, well, how would Ashton like it if he came home from school one day and the whole family had moved and not told him because they were tired of taking care of him, the way Ashton was taking care of the lizard?

“I think we’ll do that.” He says, “Maybe tomorrow. Maybe in a week or a month. You won’t know until you come home from school and find the empty house. How would you like that?”

I’m not supposed to be in Ashton’s house or anyone’s house.

Not without my mother’s specific permission. But Ashton made me something for my birthday. He told me at school that it was too big to bring so he left it at home. I haven’t seen it yet. Maybe he baked me a cake. The idea of cake makes me think about my lunch box and the two chocolate chip cookies I saved, and the Milky Way bar I stole from the 7-Eleven on my way to school this morning by slipping it up my coat sleeve while the cashier reached to get cigarettes for someone. I could share it with Ashton; maybe even put a candle in it. If he didn’t bake a cake.

Leaves fall in front of the window over the kitchen sink. In a few weeks it will be Halloween. Thinking about what my costume could be helps me put Ashton’s father’s voice out of my head. The costume can’t cost money because we don’t have any. It can’t be hard to make because there’s only my mom and she has to work at nursing school and doesn’t get to spend very much time at home. It can’t be anything from Harry Potter because Zayn Malik and Harry Styles backed me up against the wall in the boys’ room and told me they decided that certain people could be Harry Potter characters and if anyone else, for instance me, showed up in a Harry Potter costume they would make them walk naked across the school yard at recess.

“You know what I think? I think the lizard wants to go free. If you’re not going to take care of it, it’ll have a better chance out in the wild. Or if you’re going to neglect it and let it die, why not just put it out of it’s misery now? Why wait?”

I try not to imagine what Ashton’s dad is doing but pictures come into my head anyway, like the lizard being dangled by the tale or squeezed in two big hands.

A fly lands in the banana, stopping and starting in short bursts, and I make my mind go somewhere else again, to the kids I sometimes watch playing red light/green light at school. I’ve never played it myself, and they don’t invite me no matter how long I stand just a few feet away wishing hard that one of them will. My mom says if I want friends I have to smile and be friendly, even though that would be a lot easier if we were rich like practically everyone else at my school. Anyway, who should I smile at if no one will look at me? Ashton looks at me. He’s the only one who thinks I’m worth knowing.

Maybe I should get my coat and lunch box off the living room couch and slip out before Ashton’s dad notices me. Ash can give me the present later. I move as silently and slowly as I can, staring down at the red sneakers we got from the secondhand store before school started. That’s where we got my lunchbox, too, which Zayn says is for babies. When I asked Mom if I could bring my lunch in a paper bag like everyone else, she said it was wasteful and more expensive in the long run.

The front door is just ten steps away from me now. I pick up my coat and lunch box carefully, carefully, but the zipper of my coat brushes against the lunch box and makes a noise that to me is the loudest ever. No one comes, though, and I make it to the door. The knob is cool and I’m already thinking about my cookies and my Milky Way and how they’ll keep me company on the walk home, when I hear the voice of Ashton’s father behind me.

“ _Where do you think you’re going?_ ”

 


End file.
